According to a new report from CNN Money, the Windows Phone 7 apps marketplace just reached a new milestone earlier this week, as less than two months after its launch, the store offers more than 5,000 apps.
5,000 apps may not seem like much when compared to the 300,000+ apps already available for iOS devices, but when the Apple App Store launched in 2008, it took the iOS eco-system about the same amount of time to reach a similar milestone.
Interestingly enough, Windows Phone 7 is indirectly benefiting from the success of iOS and Android, as the vast majority of the apps available on the Microsoft platform are ports from iPhone, iPad and Android apps – in other words, the Microsoft apps marketplace is catching up, but eventually, the growth it is currently enjoying could prove to be short-lived.
The Apple App Store offered exactly 5,909 apps by the beginning of October 2008, a little over 2 months after its launch. At the time, Apple paved the road, as no other device manufacturers built a mobile app marketplace of that scale, and nobody really knew whether the eco-system would be viable or not. The App Store quickly became the heavyweight we know today, as a little more than two years later, the number of available apps increased by 5,000 percent, to reach more than 300,000.